Hi all. My position is I'm a 63 year old brit semi retired. I have Euros stashed in Lloyds Isle of man account. I've found a house near Cadiz, Puerto de Santa Maria.

I need to remain non resident until early next year(money taken from pension and sold uk house august just gone). I need to buy my spanish house as a holiday home by 16th November.

So I need a no residente account to move 300000 Euros from Isle of Man and then pay out 260000 to buy house.

Any suggestions on a bank that:

Can do the in/out transaction (preferrable without charging an arm and a leg but I'll take anything at the mo)?[I can offer that early next year I will convert to resident and of course need a bank for all regular house expenses and paying in my pensions and incomes.]

I've tried ING but they cannot do no residente (but very nice sensible people on the phone).Tried Santander and they behaved like 5 year olds. Took copies of my passport and non resident NIE but could offer no T&Cs, account details or basis for commissions/charges and said they'd call after speaking with the boss. But even though stating they needed to know I had a suitable economy were not interested in any details at all.I tried Sabadell giving detals of the transaction and using their request for info form. They replied "Please select an office and the branch will complete your application"

If anyone could sugggest a bank who could help I'd very much appreciate knowing of them. ( I'm good in spanish so no need for english).

Also the agent states that a spanish bank must be used to pay. While this is against EU rules I can believe that local considerations come into play. But can anyone confirm that this is the case?

Cheers one and all. Great to be back after many years with a chance to be in Andalucia permanently.

ps A very big thank you to the admin for getting me back up and running here at a very stressful time.

How about Unicaja - I have a non resident account with them which has online banking. You may need to go into a branch (local ?) to do some of it. They have a 'presence' in London too, who were very helpful to me via email & phone when my husband had a progressive lung condition

Alexandr for President (Squire for PM !)

Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.Inside of a dog it's too dark to read (Groucho Marx)

Chrissie many thanks for that. With an office in Puerto de Santa Maria it will be a target, especially now I know they have 'no residente' on their books.

Last night I mentioned to the agent I was having trouble and he said he would have a word with a friend who just happens to be a director of Rural. Normally wouldn't get too excited by that but in Spain it is always who you know that counts (in my experience).

Still 7 weeks to the deadline so fingers crossed .

ps Chrissie hope your other half is back in health and good to hear of a bank giving good service

Gracias a todos for the suggestions. I've managed to get a cheap return flight 4-6 Oct from Asturias so hopefully with your suggestions and hearing from the agent that Rural will do it at 1 Euro per thousand (although I have no details) I'm much more hopeful now.

Must say despite saying they would get back I've heard nothing from Santander or Sabadell

Ian, just be aware that if you do your Modelo 210 (Renta) online & try to pay online, you might have a problem because your NIE is used for the Renta, but your online banking will only recognise your passport !

Alexandr for President (Squire for PM !)

Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.Inside of a dog it's too dark to read (Groucho Marx)

You can open a Non residents account at any main stream bank ... have a look at Santander .. if you work it right you will avoid transfer charges that other banks insist on, and they can be quite chunky ! Santander UK and Santander Espana are two separate banks, but have agreements between them ..

For moving money I used Currencies Direct they take about 2% in Euro ie if the interbank rate is €1.37 to £1 then the exchange is about €1.35 to £1. We openned our bank a/c with Unicaja and used our passports as ID. It was straight forward and excellent customer service.

Martin we visited Santander. They were useless, brainless, plonkers. They took copies of my passport and non resident NIE. They then said how difficult it all was, that they couldn't give details of a suitable account, that they'd need details of my UK economy. So I offered the details but they were simply dumb struck saying they''d have to get back to us when they discussed it with their boss. I left email and telephone and they promised to get in touch. One week later absolutely nothing.

I appreciate if you visit enough branches you will eventually get the person with the brain

Torrox you can get much better rates than that for anything more than a thousand pounds. Try Currencyfair for example. But my concern here is the charges by a spanish bank for receiving the deposit, the money is already in Euros. At the moment Rural have offered 1 Euro per 1000 Euros which to be honest is no big deal. One has to as always appreciate free UK banking is not a spanish thing of course

I'll for sure try Unicaja as recommended by several here if the Rural do not come up with the goods.

And armed with those two I fully now expect success so thanks one and all for your help

About 2012 when we wanted open a/c with santander, we said we have santander UK a/c and the branch in Malaga wanted £10,000 to be put into a saving account which we declined. When we bought our house, we asked another santander branch near El Morche and we have the same suggestion. It seems that they don't have non resident a/c. As we transfered our money to the lawyer a/c (same Unicaja branch) we weren't charged for it and when we transfered some money from Currencies direct to our own a/c we didn't get charge either.

Torrox that is very interesting. I'm sure of course things vary over time depending on if the bank is over commited one way or the other. For sure my spanish wife walked out of a UK branch of Santander fuming when they said they understood she had no credit rating in the UK and thus she needed a simple no credit account. Told us to return in 2 hours and all would be approved. But while we were away they upgraded the account on the application (without any interaction with her). When we returned they told her she'd get a free credit card that she didn't want. Then the manager arrived looking worried and said that unfortunately her application had failed the credit check. You couldn't make it up. But that was 8 years ago.

I think the reason we might expect to pay a charge is because the account is off shore (Isle of Man). But I will ask unicaja now you've given me an example. Cheers

Just to end the story. Went with the agent as he was certainly going the extra mile in many respects and opened an account with Rural in Puerto de Santa Maria. Almost no questions asked and done in 25 minutes (lightening quick for Spain I think ).;

Costs 1 Euro per 1000 Euros I deposit from the Isle of Man but no other costs to talk about and absolutely zero if I leave a 3000 Euro balance.

My absolutely useless vote goes to Santander with Sabadell second.

My vote for being very professional even though they couldn´t help goes to ING Direct.

But of course on another day you might enter a Santander and Sabadell office and find a person with manners, some knowledge of their bank´s products, an IQ above 65, and who has been on a customer service course and you´d have a totally different impression

For moving money our Spanish estate agent (staffed largely by UK staff)recommended Cambridgefxonline.comThey have a UK office but I believe a North American owning company and they were much cheaper than our U.K. bank HSBC to transfer money to Sabadell bank in Spain there was no actual transfer fees or commissions with Cambridge they make their money on the spread between their rates and interbank but even that spread is far narrower (cheaper) than offered by HSBC to us So we saved a lot on our apartment. Our abogado helped us open the Sabadell bank account using NIEs he applied for on our behalf. That took some time.We opened the Cambridge account online and checked the cost of the sterling/euro exchange and transfer on the day before going ahead. Due to uk regulations against money laundering Cambridge are super careful to check out who you are and the purpose of your transfer. So you need to register and speak to them some days before you make your first payment. I'm no relation to them except as a satisfied customer. Good luck!

Torrox_campo wrote:For moving money I used Currencies Direct they take about 2% in Euro ie if the interbank rate is €1.37 to £1 then the exchange is about €1.35 to £1. We openned our bank a/c with Unicaja and used our passports as ID. It was straight forward and excellent customer service.